Talk:Ezreal/@comment-5151680-20120619030732
This post is in response to the Anon who posted an AP ezreal guide, but I am making it as a separate post so we don't get one large thread, like the ones from the past. For starters, I would first like to say that your guide is the stereotypical Ez build, and it has served alot of people well, and I won't hate on it for that, and other reasons. This is just another guide that has served me very well over the past few months, one to try out for people who want to play AP Ez a different way. While your guide seems to point this out as a bad build, I am saying it is not, and is actually amazing if done right. Also, the items have an entirely different level of synergy in the build I provided. I hope you don't mind, but I took the parts of your guide that hold true in my guide, and kept them. I also took the parts of your guide that don't apply to my build, and I edited them so they do apply. AP Ezreal : A guide. Okay, getting sick of bad AP Ezreals, so I'm gonna give you a guide here. AP Ezreal : Strengths. '' ''- Nice burst, with short cooldowns. '' ''- Very mobile. '' ''- Long range pokes. ''- Easy to farm with.'' ''- Looks like a Baws.'' Weaknesses. '' ''- Squishy. '' ''- E can be tricky to land, especially with minions around. '' ''- Sometimes hard to poke passive enemy champions '' ''- Skillshot reliant, and therefore a fairly high skill requirement. '' ''- NEEDS mid lane. He can't put out enough sustained damage early on to be good for top, and he has too many issues farming to take bot. Meanwhile, he's very item dependent. Please don't try to play him anywhere other than mid. '' ''Skill priority : R > Q > E > W. Get W at level 4. '' ''Reasonining: '' ''R - Self-explanitory. It's your damned ult. '' ''Q - This is your bread and butter. You poke with it, use it to charge your tear rediculously fast, and you throw it into the enemy team in skrimishes. It's got a huge range, a very low cooldown, good base damage, good early AD scaling and amazing lategame AP scaling with lichbane, a good hitbox. It's awesome. '' ''E - This is both a damaging nuke and your escape mechanism. You don't level it first because poking with it is both difficult, and also removing your main way of escaping ganks. Level it second, however, to reduce the cooldown and make it more likely to be up when you need it. '' ''W - This spell will, for a long time, do very little damage. You basically use it a) to make last poking, and b) to wreck AD carries. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you're a standard AP carry, and you use this to farm with - it doesn't do any damage to minions, and it requires alot of mana. '' ''Runes and Masteries '' ''Something very special. A 9/0/21 utility build. Choose what suits you in the utility line, but '''make sure you put 3 points into strength of spirit, it is a MUST'. Hybrid Pen marks are also a must. Health or MR seals are both good.'' For glyphs and quints, I choose flat mana, so you can spam alot early, and get alot of health/5 early, as well as great AP mid to late. '''HOWEVER,' AP/lvl glyphs and flat AP quints are also good choices, if that is what you have available.'' Build order '' ''Okay, the one thing about my build, is that EVERYTHING synergizes, and by that, I literally mean EVERYTHING. But first, let me explain your priorities in your build. '' ''Mana - Obviously, spells cost mana. Any skillshot reliant champion will want enough mana to allow the occasional miss. Furthermore, Ezreal is a fundamentally 'spammy' champion due to his short cooldowns. Personally, I like to make very sure that I won't ever run out of mana; if you're more confident, feel free to take as much as you think you can get away with. Mana also gives you '''rediculously large amounts of health regen', because of your masteries, and it gives you alot of AP because of archangels. '' Cooldown Reduction - I know, I know, Q reduces your cooldowns. That's WHY you want CDR. CDR not only reduces your cooldowns further, but it also reduces your Q's cooldown - thus allowing even LOWER cooldowns. It helps with farming (which AP Ez struggles with), poking, and for teamfights. Get it. '' ''AP - Duh. Hit harder. Duh. '' ''Lichbane - Necessary so that your Q continues hurting into late game.. '' ''So, what order do we get things in? '' ''Personally, I start off with a saphire crystal and one of each pot. Taking a meki pendant also works well if you are staying in lane longer, and need the regen. Both options give you plenty of room to poke in lane early on, as well as giving you access to an early tear. '' ''Build Tear of the Goddess as your first item. It'll let you spam all day, and you need to spam all day. Try to have your tear fully charged by the 21 minute mark. Midgame, a tear will be turned into a Archangel's for a big fat AP boost. '' ''Next, T1 boots. No big thought process here, it's necessary to move around. '' ''Your next item is a sheen. Keeping that Q hitting hard, with a sheen you can take a minion from half health to 0, making last hitting a breeze. It also makes your Q hit like a semi truck on your enemies. A sheen also gives you more mana, which helps with that passive health regen. Also get sorc shoes asap, if you need the move speed earlier, feel free to get before the sheen, but always after the tear. this point, with a tear and sheen, blue is ok for early CDR and charging the tear, but you will only need it once, if at all. This is awesome if your jungler is blue-reliant, e.g. Skarner, or your top wants it, e.g. Udyr, etc. '' ''Right, you've got your mana. Next stop, AP. Build your tear into an AA staff, it should have about 700+ bonus mana from the passive, at this point, making the AA staff a good purchase. Pick up the component parts whenever possible. Archangels is the moment that your W starts to hit harder, and you'll start doing sexy damage, since up til now you've been relying on natural spell scaling with levels, and your sheen. At last! It's time! With your Archangels complete, start finishing up that Lichbane. You can get Blasting Wand or the MR first, it depends on what you want; I tend to get the Blasting Wand just to help with farming. Once you finish your Lichbane, your Q's scaling goes from 0.2 to 1.2 - it goes from being a great poke ability, to being your strongest non-ultimate nuke. Yay. By the time you get your lichbane, your tear should be fully charged, unless you are getting really fed, which can happen alot. Now, here is where the build gets interesting. You have a couple of options. '' ''1) If you want CDR so you can buy a Glacial Shround, which I would highly recommend, because now is when that pesky AD carry and/or AD bruiser start to roam. Also remember that because Glacial shround gives mana, it also gives you a good amount of AP and health regen, so your abilities continue to hit harder. 2) If you want more health/mana and AP, buy a Rod of ages. Like a glacial shroud, this item also gives mana, which gives even more AP and health regen. 3) If you wan't more straight up damage output, you can buy a Deathcap, which will secure your damage output for lategame. Endgame, I almost always end up with all 3 of these items, but I get them in different orders. Once you get these, make sure to build that glacial shroud into a frozen heart, which will make you the ultimate AD carry killer, despite not having any hard CC Summary: '' ''Sapphire crystal or meki + pots. '' ''Tear of the Goddess '' ''T1 Boots '' ''Sheen Sorc Shoes '' ''Archangels Staff Lichbane '' ''Glacial Shroud + Rod of Ages + Rabadon's Deathcap Frozen Heart Some people do not like getting an RoA so late into the game, so some other options include: A second archangels: The +1000 mana passive doesn't stack, but the base AP and mana do, and so does the extra 3%, this item gives you a very larege amount more AP than an RoA would, and is nice if you wan't ALOT of late game damage. Deathfires Grasp: The extra bit of CDR helps, and the active makes for amazing bursts lategame. If you plan on getting this item lategame, you can buy a kages lucky pick early to help for gold generation. GA/Thornmail/FoN: These are all good situational picks, which generally are only bought if the enemy team has an extremely fed carry/bruiser. Note, there are many other options, but these are just a few good ones that I might buy, depending on enemy team composition, and how the game has played out. BAD items to get: '' ''Rylai's. Although the health is nice, it won't proc from your Q, and your W and R are considered AoE spells; E, meanwhile, will only hit if you're close enough to slap them anyway. It's not a terrible item, but there are many better ones. '' ''Abyssal Scepter. You generally shouldn't be close enough for this aura to be affecting many people on the enemy team; that's the way AP Ezreals get asploded. If you want MR, try something else. '' Conclusion : AP Ez is pretty simple, so long as you don't make the same mistakes so many people make. Your Q, not your W, is your fundamental spell; your W is an afterthought until team fights start happening. On a similar note, Lichbane is one of your core items; BUT getting it early, before you have AP, is pointless. ''Happy spamming, I hope you literally spam that Q every time it's up, so you can charge that tear before 18 minutes. '' ''Final Pro Tip: For an amusing game, hit your taunt every time you do anything. Land a skillshot? YOU BELONG IN A MUSEUM. Dodge a skillshot? YOU BELONG IN A MUSEUM. Escape a gank? YOU BELONG IN A MUSEUM. You get the gist. '' ''Pretty soon, your opponent in mid will want to kill you, then themselves. I've made people ragequit before with this tactic (seriously). The only downside is that you'll be focussed for the rest of the game. Many parts of this guide are taken from a guide posted from Yippo the clown, and may or may not be slightly edited to fit this guide. All credit for those parts goes to him.